


Black Opals

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Distrust, Family, Friendship, Gen, Loss, Memory, Midwinter, Politics, Sisters, Treason, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-16 00:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16943343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Maura prepares for her first Midwinter after Yolane's death.





	Black Opals

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rosie at Goldenlake as part of the Wishing Tree Event.

Black Opals 

It was Maura’s first Midwinter without Yolane, and she should have felt free with nobody to forbid her from building a snowman with the servant children in the castle courtyard or from visiting the cooks in the warm kitchen to sample gingerbread so steaming hot it burned her tongue now that she was the lady of Dunlath as her half-sister before her had been. Instead she felt lonely as she had when she was prohibited from playing with the peasant children Yolane had forever insisted would call unpleasant attention to her commoner mother. 

Her fingers quivered as she rummaged through the ivory jewelry box that had once been her half-sister’s pride, searching for a festive necklace to wear when she welcomed the servant boys who had marched into the forest, singing carols and swinging axes, to cut down a Midwinter tree for her entrance hall back to the castle. She had inherited all the family jewelry along with the Dunlath lands when Yolane had been convicted of high treason. 

If she had shared more of her half-sister’s cold blue blood—only caring about wealth and power—she might have reveled in the riches and status that were now hers. Since she didn’t, she clutched a necklace—strung with opals black as the ones in the mine that tempted Yolane to consort with Carthak and conspire against the Crown—in her hands. Blinking back the tears that pricked her eyes like needles because she wouldn’t cry when she wanted to be joyful for the holiday season, she tried not to remember how beautiful her half-sister had looked with the necklace around her graceful, swan-slender throat. 

She hadn’t cried either when she stood, stiff as stone, on Traitor’s Hill and stared at the sharp executioner’s blade slicing through Yolane’s graceful, swan-slender throat. Everyone said the quick death was the king’s mercy, and it had felt like it would have been treason for her to weep over a half-sister who had betrayed the kingdom when the Crown was not only sparing her own neck but allowing her to retain her family’s lands. 

“Black opals don’t become you, my fair lady.” Sir Douglass of Veldine, the distant relative Maura suspected the Crown had appointed as her guardian as much to protect her as to monitor her activities for any trace of treason, appeared in the doorway she had forgotten to close. Having no secrets or disloyalty to conceal, Maura had opened up to her protector quickly, and he had taken to teasing her with flowery titles that from anyone else would have sounded mocking but from him were affectionate as a hug. “Emeralds would do you more justice, I think.” 

“Emeralds would be festive.” Maura selected a necklace studded with emeralds that gleamed in the candlelight and snapped it around her neck. “Have the servant boys returned with the tree then?” 

“Yes.” Sir Douglass’s nod was reflected in Maura’s dresser mirror. “They’re waiting in the entrance hall for you.” 

“Then I won’t keep them waiting much longer.” Maura snatched up a velvet pouch filled with gold coins with which to reward the servant boys for finding her Midwinter tree. 

She hurried down a spiraling staircase to the entrance hall where she thanked the holly-cheeked servant boys with a broad smile for each and a gold coin slipped into their palms. Her chest swelled at the sight of their surprised delight to be given money for their service. Yolane, after all, had always been more generous with her reprimands than her coins. Maura’s servants were still adjusting to having a mistress slower to snarl and quicker to open her pursestrings in acknowledgment of their labors. 

To further astonish the servant boys, she drew on what little magic she possessed to light miniature golden suns—a tribute to Mithros—along the tree’s branches. The boys gasped and gaped, making Maura grin. 

“I thought you were going to burn down the tree and the castle!” Sir Douglass leaped back from the tree as though shocked. 

“The castle is stone, Sir Douglass.” Maura giggled at her guardian. “Stone can’t burn.” 

“I see that you’re doing your best to test that as usual, my dear lady.” Sir Douglass tapped her nose, ignoring how she wrinkled it like a rabbit at him in reproach at this calumny.


End file.
